Work Release

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT WORK RELEASE - PAGE 2

New prison studied in Pa. By DON AINES / Staff Writer, Chambersburg CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - With many prisoners sleeping three to a cell, the Franklin County Prison Board Thursday recommended that the Board of County Commissioners hire a consultant to come up with short-term answers to prison overcrowding, possibly including separating the work-release program completely from the Department of Corrections. continued Warden Ray Rosenberry said the inmate population Thursday was 333, nine short of the record one-day record set Sept.

Escapees caught By BOB PARTLOW / Staff Writer, Martinsburg MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - Two men who escaped from work release jobs in Pennsylvania Friday were arrested in Martinsburg early Wednesday by West Virginia and Pennsylvania state police. Eric James Smith, 21, of Blue Ridge Summit, Pa., was arrested without incident while talking on a pay phone on Eagle School Road across from the Peekaboo Lounge. Smith was serving time for a parole violation after having been convicted of simple assault in August 1999.

Inmates eyed for road work CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - Franklin County Prison inmates might begin cleaning some county roads next month, according to Warden Raymond Rosenberry. "It's still in the planning stage. We're shooting for an April 15 start-up," he said Monday. "It's strictly a volunteer situation. They get to get away from the prison for a bit," Rosenberry said of the prisoners. He said the program would be open to inmates eligible for work-release. Not every nonviolent offender who is eligible for work release has a job to go to, Rosenberry said.

HAGERSTOWN, Md. - Letting Washington County's nonviolent prisoners hold jobs and serve their sentences at home is not only good for easing them back into society, it's good business, jail officials recently told local judges. Prisoners who qualify for the Washington County Detention Center's alternative sentencing programs - work release, home detention and weekend incarceration - pay tens of thousands of dollars each year to offset jail costs, according to jail information.

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - Nonviolent inmates at Franklin County Prison soon will be able to leave their cells to gather litter along the county's roads, a Franklin County Commissioner said Friday. Commissioner Robert L. Thomas, who is president of the seven-member prison board, said the county has been trying to get the project moving for more than a year. The prison hopes to start the operation in less than a month, he said. Equipment already has been purchased. Only prisoners deemed eligible by the courts for work release can volunteer for the community cleanup program, Thomas said.

A bill that would require individuals who owe child support and are part of a home detention, work release or a pretrial release program run by the Washington County Sheriff's Office to pay child support is advancing in the Maryland General Assembly, and passed a second reading in the Senate on Wednesday. The bill has been filed in the House of Delegates by the Washington County delegation and in the Senate by Sen. Christopher B. Shank, R-Washington. “I was discussing the issue of child support and victims rights with some people over the summer and they pointed out to me that Washington County was one of the few counties that didn't already have the ability to ensure that people who are on work release did have to pay child support.

chambersburg@herald-mail.com CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - Three Franklin County Prison inmates in the pre-release program escaped from the annex Wednesday night. Eric Plummer, 21, Robert Thomas Jr., 21, and Ralph Hepfer Jr., 24, all of Chambersburg, were discovered missing at 9:40 p.m. by corrections officers, Warden John Wetzel said. It appeared the three took a picnic table and moved it close to the fence in the work-release yard, climbed over and took off, he said. Wetzel said inmates in the pre-release program are housed in an annex to the main prison and have access to the work-release yard, which is not secured, from 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Inmates in the program work in the community on a daily basis.

Police log Cops say Pa. man was in stolen vehicle SCOTLAND, Pa. - Pennsylvania State Police said a Chambersburg, Pa., man was taken into custody Wednesday after being stopped in a vehicle that had been reported stolen. Police said Christopher Scheidegger, 32, was charged with receiving stolen property. According to the report, a vehicle belonging to First Impressions Inc. of Shippensburg, Pa., had been reported stolen to the Mid-Cumberland Valley Regional Police Department on Thursday.

Christopher Lynn Reed would have tasted freedom in only 11 days. But at about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, while on work-release from the Washington County Detention Center, Reed walked away from his job at the Resh Sanitary Landfill west of Hagerstown, according to the Sheriff's Department. He was spotted riding a bicycle at the landfill on U.S. 63 and later broke into a relative's house on Mount Tabor Road, deputies alleged. Sgt. Mark Faith said Reed, 23, found out his former girlfriend was living with another man. Reed allegedly told authorities that he wanted to get his kids.

A work release inmate who failed to return from a work release program on Oct. 1 was recaptured early Friday by Washington County Sheriff's deputies. Joseph Dempsey Feiser, 19, was being held in the Washington County Detention Center without bond Tuesday. A Hagerstown native, Feiser was serving 18 months for burglary when he took off. First-degree escape charges have been lodged against him, court records said. Feiser was charged with burglary in a Jan. 19 break-in at a Williamsport home in which items valued at more than $11,000 were taken, Maryland State Police said.